The Swan Lake
The world-scale masterpiece
“The Swan Lake” is a world-known masterpiece, a ballet, written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, famous Russian composer, in 1875-1876. Being created in the late period of lifetime of Pyotr Tchaikovsky it became the artist’s visit card, an evidence of his personal talent and professional achievements in the field of music. As an unique phenomenon of culture, “The Swan Lake” gathered all richness of traditional romantic ballet of 19 century and determined the development of ballet theater even in XX century.
The performance passed the way through the thorns to the stars just as its master during his working on the play. The process of arising “The Swan Lake” was accompanied with many paradoxes and many “buts”. Being very excited by the whole idea of creating the play with a dynamic plot the artist had written it just within a year, but he was bored by the process of writing the partiture. On 17/29 March, in a letter to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, composer wrote: "I am up to my eyes in the scoring of the ballet, which without fail must be finished by Saint Thomas’s Week. With 2½ acts still to do, I have decided to devote the whole of Easter to this endlessly boring task. In order to do the job properly, I need two weeks away from here otherwise nothing will get done” (Tchaikovsky 104-105).
The origins and national background of “The Swan Lake”
A plot is based on German folk motifs, in particular, on an old legend about princess Odette (prototype of future main female character of “The Swan Lake”), cursed by a knight Rothbart. The libretto was complemented by a story of German writer Johann Musäus “The Stolen Veil”. And, in the end, the prototype of the main male character Prince Siegfried was based on tragic character of Bavarian king Ludwig II, which remained Tchaikovsky a symbol of swan. Despite of German origin “The Swan Lake” is considered to be a symbol of Russian classical ballet. According to Fyodor Lopukhov, the Russian ballet patriarch, both the plot of Swan Lake, the image of the Swan and the very idea of a faithful love are essentially Russian.
Two premières
“The Swan Lake” is an example of the unpredictability of fate and variability of audience’s tastes. A première of Tchaikovsky’s original production took place in 1877 on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, but it wasn’t successful because of several reasons. First, the German origins were unfamiliar for Russian audience, second, the critics found Reisinger’s choreography “unimaginative and altogether unmemorable” and third, the main, reason of failure laid in Tchaikovsky’s music. The critics considered it “too noisy, too ‘Wagnerian’ and too symphonic” and too complicated for ballet. Nevertheless its staging continued for the next six years. The new version of the ballet with proved choreography by Marius Petipa was first staged in 1895 at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, which Tchaikovsky by himself, unfortunately, couldn’t see. Since then it was considered as an official version staged on theaters. “The ballet world would have certainly been dealt a crushing blow by the loss of this tremendous work had it not been for the continued attempts to make what was once a poorly received ballet an accepted classic fixture of ballet repertory everywhere” (Wunder).
A plot of “The Swan Lake” ballet
Despite of all controversies around “The Swan Lake” the ballet by itself is extremely solid and harmonious in terms of plot and musical picture. Dramatic and musical core of the entire ballet – its leitmotiv – a swan song. Another important mean of creating of its music integrity, elegiacal mood is a waltz, which provides lyrical and dramatic rhythm throughout whole composition. In the four acts of the ballet real and fantastic images are intertwined.
The story begins with Prince Siegfried’s celebrating his birthday. A merriment is suddenly interrupted by his mother, which decided to arrange the royal ball, where he have to choose a future wife. Being very upset Prince go for a hunt on flocks of swans. In the forest when Siegfried stays alone suddenly in front of his eyes the flock of swans appears. Prince decides to hunt on them, but he stops at the moment when one of the birds turns into a beautiful girl, Odette. Siegfried falls in love with Odette, but she tells him about spell cast by the sorcerer Von Rothbart. By day she with other maidens are turned into swans and at night they again become human. The action develops on a masquerade in the royal palace, when Von Rothbart arrives with his daughter, Odile, made to look the same as Odette. Being deceived Siegfried proclaims Odile his bride. Von Rothbart shows Siegfried Odette, so he returns to the forest to explain his fault. He apologies and lovers renew their relations. Then sorcerer appears, he insists on Siegfried’s and Odile marriage, after which Odette will live in the likeness of swan forever. Siegfried doesn’t agree and decides to drown in the lake together with his beloved. It makes von Rothbart powerless after he dies. A ballet had an alternative ending. When Odette had seen her beloved could die, she decided also jump into the lake, but suddenly storm had abated and lovers stayed alive. In the end white swan turns again into a girl Odette.
Tchaikovsky’s reform in ballet music opened new ways for development of choreography of stage works. Now the “Swan Lake” is one of the most famous and beloved ballet among audience. It walked probably all the ballet scenes in the world.
Works cited
Letter 453 to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, 17/29 March 1876. In: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Letters to his family. An autobiography (1981), p. 104–105 (English translation; abridged).
Wunder Rachel. Swan Lake – a History. Web. 7 May 2016.